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And what is writ, is writ!'-the guilt and shame,
All eyes have seen them, and all lips may blame;
Where is the record of the wrong that stung,
The charm that tempted, and the grief that wrung?
Let feeble hands, iniquitously just,

Rake up the relics of the sinful dust,

Let Ignorance mock the pang it cannot feel,
And Malice brand, what Mercy would conceal;
It matters not! he died as all would die;
Greece had his earliest song, his latest sigh;

And o'er the shrine, in which that cold heart sleeps,
Glory looks dim, and joyous conquest weeps.
The maids of Athens to the spot shall bring

The freshest roses of the new-born spring,

And Spartan boys their first-won wreath shall bear,

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To bloom round BYRON's urn, or droop in sadness there!
Farewell, sweet ATHENS! thou shalt be again

The sceptred Queen of all thine old domain,
Again be blest in all thy varied charms

Of loveliness and valor, arts and arms.

Forget not then, that, in thine hour of dread,
While the weak battled, and the guiltless bled,

Though Kings and Courts stood gazing on thy fate,
The bad, to scoff,-the better, to debate,
Here, where the soul of youth remembers yet
The smiles and tears which manhood must forget,
In a far land, the honest and the free

Had lips to pray, and hearts to feel, for thee!

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Note.-Several images in the early part of the poem are selected from passages in the Greek Tragedians;-particularly from the two wellknown Chorusses in the Edipus Coloneus and the Medea.

The death of LORD BYRON took place after the day appointed for the sending in of the exercises; and the allusion to it has of course been introduced subsequent to the adjudication of the prize.

Mr. Marshall of St. John's College produced so excellent a Poem, that the Examiners were undecided, and obliged to call other aid to settle the comparative merits of the candidates."

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED,

TRINITY COLLEGE.

ON THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

PART V. [Continued from No. LVIII.]

In order that the preceding inferences may not appear to be built on insufficient data, I subjoin the annexed account of the Pyramid from Greaves, who is generally aditted to be most scrupulously accurate in dimensions and description.

"On the north side, ascending thirty-eight feet, upon an artificiall bank of earth, there is a square, and narrow passage leading into the Pyramid, through the mouth of which, being equidistant from the two sides of the Pyramid, we enter as it were down the steep of a hill, declining with an angle of twenty-six degrees. The breadth of this entrance is exactly three feet, and 463 parts of 1000 of the English foot: the length of it beginning from the first declivity, which is some ten palmes without, to the utmost extremity of the neck or strait within, where it contracts it selfe almost nine feet continued, with scarce halfe the depth it had at the first entrance (though it keep still the same breadth), is ninety-two feet and a halfe. The structure of it hath been the labour of an exquisite hand, as appeares by the smoothnesse and evenesse of the work, and by the close knitting of the joints. A property long since observed, and commended by Diodorus, has run through the fabrick of the whole body of this Pyramid. Having passed with tapers in our hands this narrow strait, though with some difficulty (for at the farther end of it we must, serpent-like, creep upon our bellies), we land in a place somewhat larger, and of a pretty height, but lying incomposed, having been dug away, either by the curiosity or avarice of some, in hope to discover an hidden treasure; or rather by the command of Almamon, the deservedly renowned Calife of Babylon. By whomsoever it were, it is not worth the inquiry, nor doth the place merit describing, but that I was unwilling to pretermit any thing: being only an habitation for bats, and those so ugly, and of so large a size (exceeding a foot in length), that I have not elsewhere seen the like. The length of this obscure and broken space conteineth eighty-nine feet, the breadth and height is various, and not worth consideration, On the left hand of this, adjoyning to that narrow entrance thorough which we passed, we climbe up a steep and massy stone, eight or nine feet in height, where we immediately enter upon the lower end of the gallery. The pavement of this rises with a gentle acclivity, consisting of smooth and polished marble, and

where not smeared with dust and filth, appearing of a white and alabaster colour: the sides, and roofe, as Titus Livius Burretinus, a Venetian, an ingenious young man, who accompanied me thither, observed, was of impolished stone, not so hard, and compact, as that on the pavement, but more soft, and tender: the breadth almost five feet, and about the same quantity the height, if he have not mistaken. He likewise discovered some irregularity in the breadth, it opening a little wider in some places, then in others; but this inequality could not be discerned by the eye, but only by measuring it with a carefull hand. By my observation with a line, this gallery conteined in length an hundred and ten feet. At the end of this begins the second gallery, a very stately piece of work, and not inferior, either in respect of the curiosity of art, or richnesse of materials, to the most sumptuous and magnificent buildings. It is divided from the former by a wall, through which, stooping, we passed in a square hole, much about the same bignesse, as that by which we entered into the Pyramid, but of no considerable length. This narrow passage lieth levell, not rising with an acclivity, as doth the pavement below, and roof above, of both these galleries. At the end of it, on the right hand, is the well mentioned by Pliny; the which is circular, and not square, as the Arabian writers describe: the diameter of it exceeds three feet, the sides are lined with white marble, and the descent into it is by fastning the hands and feet in little open spaces, cut in the sides within, opposite and answerable to one another, in a perpendicular. In the same manner are almost all the wells, and passages into the cesterns at Alexandria, contrived without staires or windings, but only with inlets and square holes, on each side within; by which, using the feet and hands, one may with ease descend. Many of these cesternes are with open and double arches, the lowermost arch being marble pillars, upon the top of which stands a second row, bearing the upper and higher arch: the walls within are covered with a sort of plaister for the colour white; but of so durable a substance, that neither by time, nor by the water, is it yet corrupted and impaired. But I returne from the cesternes and wells there to this in the Pyramid, which, in Plinie's calculation, is eighty-six cubits in depth, and it may be, was the passage to those secret vaults mentioned, but not described, by Herodotus, that were hewen out of the naturall rock, over which this Pyramid is erected. By my measure, sounding it with a line, it conteines twenty feet in depth. The reason of the difference between Plinie's observation and mine, VOL. XXX. NO. LX.

Cl. JI.

Q

1 suppose to be this, that since his time, it hath almost been dammed up, and choked with rubbage, which I plainly discovered at the bottome, by throwing down some combustible matter set on fire. Leaving the well, and going on straight upon a levell, the distance of fifteen feet, we entred another square passage, opening against the former, and of the same bignesse. The stones are very massy, and exquisitely jointed, I know not whether of that glistering and speckled marble I mentioned in the columnes of the cesternes at Alexandria. This leadeth (running in length upon a levell an hundred and ten feet) into an arched vault, or little chamber, which, by reason it was of a grave-like smell, and halfe full of rubbage, occasioned my lesser stay. This chamber stands East and West: the length of it is lesse than twenty feet, the breadth about seventeen, and the height lesse than fifteen. The walls are entire, and plastered over with lime, the roofe is covered with large smooth stones, not lying flat, but shelving and meeting above in a kind of arch, or rather an angle. On the East side of this room, in the midle of it, there seems to have been a passage leading to some other place. Whither this way the priests went into the hollow of that huge Sphinx, as Strabo and Pliny term it, or Androphinx, as Herodotus cals such kinds, being by Pliny's calculation CII feet in compasse about the head, in height LXI, in length CXLIII, and by my observation_made of one entire stone, which stands not far distant without the Pyramid, or into any other private retirement, I cannot determine; and it may be too this served for no such purpose, but rather as a theka or niche,' wherein some idol might be placed, or else for a piece of ornament in the architecture of these times, which ours may no more understand than they do the reason of the rest of these strange proportions, that appear in the passages and inner rooms of this Pyramid. Returning back the same way we came, as soon as we are out of this narrow and square passage, we climb over it, and going straight on, in the trace of the second gallery, upon a shelving pavement (like that of the first), rising with an angle of 26°, we at length come to another partition. The length of the gallery from the well below to this partition above is 154 feet; but if we measure the pavement of the floor, it is somewhat less, by reason of a little vacuity

'Maillet calls it a niche, and says it is 8 feet high, 3 deep, and 3 wide-later accounts, but unconfirmed, say that it leads into another

room.

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(some 15 feet in length), as we described before, between the well and the square hole we climbed over. And here, to reassume some part of that which hath been spoken of, we consider the narrow entrance, at the mouth of the Pyramid by which we descend, and the length of the first and second galleries by which we ascend, all of them lying, as it were, in the same continued line, and leading to the middle of the Pyramid, we may easily apprehend a reason of that strange echoe within of 4 or 5 voices, noticed by Plutarch, or rather of a long continued sound, as I found by discharging a musket at the entrance. This gallery is built of white and polished marble, which is evenly cut in spacious squares; of such materials as is the pavement, such is the roof, and such are the side walls that flank it: the knitting of the joints is so close that they are scarce discernible by the curious eye, and that which adds grace to the whole structure, though it makes the passage the more difficult, is the acclivity of the ascent. The height of this gallery is 26 feet, the breadth 60, of which, 3435 are to be allowed for the way in the midst, which is bounded on both sides with two branches of polished stone; each of these has 1 foot in breadth, and as much in depth. Upon the top of these benches, near the angle where they close and join with the wall, are little spaces, cut in right-angled parallell figures, set on each side opposite to one another, intended, no question, for some other end than ornament. In the ranging the marbles in both the side-walls, there is one piece of architecture, in my judgement, very graceful, and that is, that all the ranges (seven) do flag over one another about 3 inches, the bottom of the uppermost course oversetting the higher part of the second, and the lower part of this overflagging the top of the third, and so in order of the rest as they descend. Having passed this gallery, we enter another square hole' of the same dimensions with the former, which brings us into two anticlosets, lined with a rich and speckled kind of Thebaic marble. The first of these has the dimensions almost equal to the second, the area of which is level, the figure oblong, and one side containing 7 feet, the other 33: the height is 10. On the East and West sides, within 2 feet of the top, which is somewhat larger than the bottom, are three cavities or little seats in this manner, ʊʊʊ. The inner anti-closet is separated from the former

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'Over this is a secret passage leading into a chamber above the

centre room.

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